The Friends School of Atlanta

Bringing forward more than 329 years of excellence in Quaker Education

Noticias!: Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

“Noticias! Noticias!” rang out the news carriers on the third floor of FSA as they scurried from room to room.

On any given day, it’s not unusual to hear such enthusiastic footsteps peddling to and fro on the upper levels of the school. In a place where education is always the adventure, hearing chants in another language may be quite the norm.

For the second year, Spanish teacher Brian Ryu has chosen to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month by charging his eighth graders with the task of creating their own Spanish-language newsletter and delivering it to the rest of the middle school community. This year’s end result is El Mes de Herencia Hispana, an impressive collection of article summaries entirely written and produced by students.

For Brian, teaching involves reinvention and innovation. He is constantly looking for novel pedagogical ideas to not only immerse his students into the Spanish language, but the many cultures of those who speak it. This activity is one that encourages students to discover the rich culture and history of Spanish-speaking countries and the Hispanic community that comprises one of the largest minority groups in the United States.

“There is a certain awareness around Hispanic culture that is more visible to mainstream America, including our students,” Brian said. “But asking them to dig deeper and explore the historical significance and contributions that highlight Hispanic heritage brings their awareness to a whole new level.”

Hispanic Heritage Month is meant to emphasize the important presence of Hispanic and Latino Americans in North America. Beginning as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, it became a month-long celebration in 1988. September 15 was chosen as the starting date for the month to acknowledge the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua—that were all released from Spanish rule in 1821.

It took the Spanish II class about a week and a half to produce the newsletter. This may seem unbelievable when readers first glance the introduction, a succinct paragraph with one central message: “the thing we need above and beyond a united voice is a diverse voice.”

This need to recognize the diverse voices that make up our many communities is the motivation behind the well-crafted language and attention to detail within the newsletter and its production. And for those in need of noticias but unfamiliar with Spanish, the students provide English translations as well as keywords for enthusiasts in search of learning a new language.

Though an article on chocolate may appear rather unrelated to a newsletter dedicated to  Hispanic Heritage Month, one student writer wanted to point out that the cacao bean from which chocolate is made was actually first used by the ancient Olmecs in what we now know as Mexico. In fact, such probing into the history and importance of chocolate was a topic some of the students previously explored in World Studies with Alex Zinnes.

Another student chose to report on Celia Cruz, the Cuban singer also known as the Queen of Salsa. “I never heard of Cruz,” she said. “Before I didn’t know about Hispanic music. So that was cool to research.”

Although Brian did the copyediting for the newsletter, his students were in charge of everything else, from writing to selecting the accompanying photos. Even that task he would have delegated to his students if they had more time. Because Brian’s curriculum prepares students to speak, read and write in Spanish, his former students report that they often feel ahead when they enroll in high school classes. This is no doubt due to assignments like this one that require students to be attentive and mindful to the social significance of their work.

If it wasn’t already apparent, Brian’s approach to teaching is always led by the philosophy that students are the bearers of knowledge. In this instance, these future journalists proved themselves to be skilled in more areas than previously thought. And that, too, is quite the norm.

Click here to view El Mes de Herencia Hispana Newsletter 2017

 

By Malcolm Tariq

A True Partnership

By Alex Zinnes, Middle School World Studies Teacher

I have noticed that community service projects are often undertaken from a place of inequity, inequity of resources and of power. The organization serving often comes from the stance of “I have something YOU need. Allow me to give it to you.”

Since the Friends School of Atlanta’s (FSA) first encounter with Our House, which provides child care and support for families who experience homelessness, I have wanted our relationship to be one based in mutuality, a partnership, recognizing that both groups benefit from the experience of working together to support the Our House preK.

Sure, preK kids at Our House benefit academically as well as socially and emotionally with one-on-one contact with our 7th and 8th grade volunteers who come twice a week. (Our House is located about one tenth of a mile from FSA.)And, Our House benefits when we are able to bring donated supplies or to connect the program with our parent community and other resources to enrich the programming.

 

But I want to reinforce that FSA benefits from the partnership with Our House, too. I ask my students if they have ever considered becoming a teacher, camp counselor, babysitter, sports coach, or lifeguard. Many of them say that they are considering those paths. And they immediately recognize that Our House is giving them valuable life experience working with children or even a window into what being a parent might be like.

Our students transition to other schools for high school, and students know that our partnership at Our House offers them a unique experience that communicates to their new schools that they are caring people. They speak of learning about the importance of being patient, kind, and supportive to their little buddies and how that makes them feel good, too. Students often talk about Our House as a formative life experience in their high school admissions process.

I have 7th and 8th grade students with their own learning differences. For a student with a reading struggle, the ability to read a book with confidence to the Our House preK kids is a happy moment of relief. My students who experience social and emotional struggles of their own with their peers feel the pressure ease up at Our House: they get to feel like the cool kids, secure and self-possessed. Over and over again, I witness how family, academic, and social stress just melts away for FSA students at Our House. That is an invaluable offering.

Middle school can be a confusing and turbulent time as students figure out who they are becoming. FSA’s partnership with Our House provides our students with both practical life skills and a pleasant refuge where they can learn, grow, and feel a sense of their own goodness. On behalf of my students and the FSA community, thank you for this vital and sustaining partnership.

All Sides of the Picture

photo drivingNancy Bent knows about seeing the world with open eyes. Her father moved the family down south in the 1950s to work as a UPI photographer. He saw it all—the race riots, the protests, the fear, and the strong yet peaceful tenacity of those who stand up for their beliefs.

He spent years as a photojournalist and a television producer in Atlanta, and his experience taught Nancy to see the world in a specific way. You have one picture of reality with two (or more) sides. You see it all, unfiltered, and, with knowledge and empathy, move forward with conviction to do what’s right.

That conviction eventually brought her to The Friends School of Atlanta, first as a mother, then as a board member, and, starting seven years ago, as a school administrator. She’s now FSA’s Director of Advancement and Admissions.  Serving all three roles has given her unique perspective.

It can be summed up in an experience Nancy had as an FSA parent, looking at a child’s drawing posted among many others in the school hallway. The school project had to do with human and civil rights, and the stick-figure sketch was of a little girl holding hands with two moms. At first Nancy thought that her daughter—who, after all, has two moms— had drawn it. This was the mid-1990s, and having two moms or two dads wasn’t viewed quite like it is today.

But her daughter hadn’t drawn it. It was a girl who the year before had teased her, saying, “You can’t have two moms. That’s illegal.”

Teachers and administrators intervened and got the children and parents together. Turns out the girl’s parents didn’t believe what their daughter had said. “Bottom line, the girl was just being mean,” Nancy recalled. “She was 8; it can be tough age. I got it. I wasn’t upset with anybody, and it was all handled respectfully.”

The next year, when the teacher asked children to draw something that showed a human or civil right, that same girl thought of her classmate and friend. Next to the drawing she wrote, “Everyone has the right to have a family.”

The girl learned all sides of the picture, moved forward with conviction, followed her heart, and did what she thought was right.

That, in a nutshell, is a Friends School of Atlanta education.

By Tim Heston

Tim Heston has written for business magazines since 1996. He’s won some awards here and there, but his greatest achievement is being the proud parent of an FSA fourth grader.